Quick on the Vigor
'Quick on the Vigor '''is the 175th Popeye cartoon, released by Famous Studios in 1950. It features Popeye and Olive with Bluto the Strongman as the main antagonist, and the carny barker and carny worker as bit players. While loosely based on the 1935 Fleischer cartoon ''King of the Mardi Gras, it expands on the theme by adding a flirtatious relationship between Olive Oyl and the antagonist to the physical prowess contests that characterize the earlier work. Plot The cartoon opens with an establishing shot of the County Fair. We see Popeye and Olive strolling through the grounds on a date, when a Test of Strength device catches Popeye's eye. Using his fist, he succeeds in ringing the bell at the top and wins a box of sweets for Olive. He then repeats the stunt, over and over. We are shown O li ve's face, following the staccato rhyth m of Popeye's endeavors on her behalf. Suddenly, we hear a barker's voice in the distance: "Introducing BLUTO, the Strongest Man in the World!" Olive glances to the side with a look of surprise and delight on her face as we are shown the Strongman, looking smug and confident on the stage with a crowd of onlookers admiring him. As the barker cries, "Each and every muscle on his herculean physique vibrates!" Bluto flexes, with his arm muscles dancing in time to lascivious hoochie-coochie music. "Ba-ROTH-ERR!!" Olive exclaims. "What a mess of muscle!" As she says this the Strongman notices her, with his own look of surprise and delight, his eyeballs turning to hearts as he is enraptured. We return to Popeye (who has w on every box of candy and put the Test of Strength operator out of business), who realizes with a start he has now lost Olive's interest. As the action returns to the stage area, we watch Bluto grasp a steel I-beam in his teeth; he then bends it into the shape of a heart and presents it to a receptive Olive. An angry Popeye grabs the steel heart away from Olive and denounces Bluto as a fake and a fraud. There follows a series of strength contests, with Popeye's own abilities (e.g. levitating a 1000-lb barbell with an air jet from his pipe) allowing him to match the bodybuilder's feats of strength. Finally Bluto locks himself into a trick safe and breaks out and challenges Popeye to duplicate the feat in an untricked model on the other side of the stage. Popeye takes the bait and is trapped. With her boyfriend out of the way, Bluto offers to show Olive the fair. The two parade arm-in-arm and are soon on the Ferris wheel together. Bluto stops the ride at the top with his foot and asks Olive for a kiss. She refuses and jumps to the next car; Bluto perches himself on the support structure and tries to grab her as she comes by. Olive keeps jumping to the next lower car as an impasse is reached. She screams for Popeye to come to her aid. Without resorting to spinach, Popeye turns his trusty pipe into a blowtorch and extricates himself from his confinement. He dislodges Bluto's perch from the Ferris wheel, but inadvertently sends the wheel itself -with Olive on board- careening on a path of destruction through the fairgrounds. He sets out to save her; Bluto, sliding down from the top, loosens the 80-foot steel beam from its concrete footing, and, holding it over his head and running with it, beams Popeye, molding it to his shape. The Strongman then takes off after Olive, who is now trapped on a moving roller coaster. After a series of near-misses, Bluto is on the verge of catching up to Olive and forcing himself on her as Popeye finds his spinach. The sailor grabs the roller coaster track and creates a wave as if it was a liquid and sends the villain's car his way. Bluto, finally losing his smug coolness and visibly angered, cocks his fist and winds his arm to let Popeye have it, but the powerful sailor beats him to the punch and sends the brute back up the roller coaster track without the car. We watch as Bluto's head smashes every railroad tie to splinters. In the final scene we see that Olive has learned her lesson and is now attentively and worshipfully watching Popeye utilizing his bicep (instead of his fist) to ring the bell at the top of the Test of Strength pole over and over and over. As the camera pans upwards, we see that the washed-up Strongman's body, after its devastating ride up the roller coaster track, has come to rest at the top of the pole and is now on the receiving end of retaliatory punishment. Popeye has proven that spinach makes him the "Strongest Man in the World." Gallery Bluto Making Popeye Jealous.gif Bluto Rippling Muscles.gif Bluto Bulging Beefcake.gif Bluto Big Poundage.gif Bluto Tosses His Barbell.gif Bluto the Safecracker.gif Bluto Safebuster.gif Bluto Suckers Popeye.gif Bluto Strongman Sweettalk.gif Bluto Telegraphs His Intentions.gif Bluto Roller-Coaster Rubout.gif Popeye Makes Bluto Dance.gif External links * [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0152118/ Quick on the Vigor] at the Internet Movie Database Category:Popeye's Episodes Category:Printeds by Harvey Films Category:Famous Studios